Shanghai, China
When completed in 1999, Jin Mao Tower was the tallest building in China and a symbol of Shanghai’s ascendancy as the “head of the dragon,” as proclaimed by the Communist leader and reformer Deng Xiaoping. The tower is in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai, a city of 16 million in 1999 that has grown to 24 million in 2018.
A mixed-use building with offices on the lower floors and a hotel above, the tower’s structure shifts above the 52nd floor from a solid core housing elevators and mechanical systems to an open atrium that penetrates the upper floors with a ring of rooms accessed from corridors encircling the void. The 88th floor is dedicated to an observation deck. The pagoda-like shape of the tower references Chinese culture that today it seems to mark Jin Mao as part of a “first generation” of skyscraper design in China, in contrast to the sculptural minimalism of Shanghai World Financial Center (2008) or the lithe spiral form of the 128-story Shanghai Tower (2015).